IPFire changing DSL password?

Networking
1

Hi all,

I upgraded yesterday to core build 146 and this morning my DSL was not working anymore. Reason was that the PPPoE password for the dial in through the DSL modem was not correct. The internet provider confirmed that it was changed in their system sometime yesterday. After changing it again in the internet provider system and in my IPFire profile the connection works again.

Is there any possibility that IPFire would change this password during a system update and/or the following reboot or for any other reason? I am at a loss here how the password could have been changed.

Thanks, Steffen

2

core146 contains the kernel, initrd, intel-microcode and openvpn nothing else was changed.

https://git.ipfire.org/?p=ipfire-2.x.git;a=tree;f=config/rootfiles/core/146/filelists;h=b9b156921e9aaab7a88814246f65cb8ffd5baec6;hb=46bccfc21946f027ff81349cf9af33c9564f9b0c

Have you configured more than one profile? IPFire has an option to switch between the profiles if the connection has failed 5 times…

3

No, there is only that one profile configured (there are 5 shown but as “empty” in the web UI). Plus switching to another profile wouldn’t change the password in the provider systems, right?

4

IPFire cannot change the password on provider side. This could usually only change by the user on the providers webpage, the provider itself or an attacker that has also access to the webconfig of the isp.

1 Like
5

Not knowing the practice for DSL/PPoE connections exactly, I suppose the password is set by the ISP. Right? Thus it shouldn’t be possible to change it from the client side. I think it was a problem of your ISP occuring by accident the same time as you updated your IPFire.

6

There must be another way to change the password as I could change it if using another router (e.g. a Fritz!Box). I was wondering if the protocol used there is also used by IPFire and if that’s what happened here.

7

Yes, that’s possible and that was my first thought as well. I am still baffled by the fact that the ISP comfirmed when calling the hotline that the password was changed yesterday. But there are other strange facts that are not fitting into the story.

According to the ISP technical hotline the changed password would only be in effect when the PPPoE connection is restarted. That restart is scheduled in IPFire for 03:35, but I and the ISP could see that the connection was severed at around 01:00. Very strange!

Anyways, thank you for your answers so far. I am now more sure than before that IPFire did not change the password. I will continue to monitor the situation and if anything more comes up report here.

Thank you, Steffen